


Without Armor

by the_pen_is_mightier



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Emotional Intimacy, Fluff, Love, M/M, Post-Armageddon, Softness, Tenderness, heavily implied sexual content, they're gentle with each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22639924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_pen_is_mightier/pseuds/the_pen_is_mightier
Summary: “No,” Aziraphale whispers. “No. I belong to you now.”When’s the last time he’s felt able to give himself so freely? And when’s the last time - never, surely, never ever before - that he’s received the answer Crowley murmurs in his ear as they move toward the bed?I’m yours too, angel, yours forever.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 152





	Without Armor

It’s done in the dark. Their meetings, at the beginning, were always in bright sunlight - the harsh glare of the desert as seen from Eden’s wall, the dusty starkness of Golgotha, the wide, empty space of the Globe at that first showing of _Hamlet_. Then there was the darkened church, and later, a street corner by night in Soho. But Aziraphale has always been cautious of that sort of thing. In daylight he is controlled; he sees the distance between himself and Crowley, knows anyone could be watching whether it grows or shrinks, knows better than to move any closer. In the dark it’s so easy to reach out. In the dark it feels like he’s hidden. 

“Don’t turn on the light,” Aziraphale whispers as Crowley shuts his bedroom door behind them, one arm still around Aziraphale, already turning back to press his lips to Aziraphale’s again. 

“Hmmm?” Crowley asks.

“Let’s stay in the dark. I…” he flushes, but oh, no one can see him - it’s a secret, shared only with Crowley as Crowley caresses his cheek. “I feel safe, in the dark. It’s so bright in Heaven.” 

Crowley presses against him, and Aziraphale’s eyes are shut but he _feels_ Crowley’s smile as it nuzzles into his neck, his shoulder. As he leans his forehead against Aziraphale, the touch gentle and firm and soothing and so _intimate_ \- Someone’s sake, when’s the last time anyone has touched Aziraphale like this? When has anyone ever reveled in nearness to him? Aziraphale reaches closer, wanting more and more and more, wanting to fall into this embrace and never stop falling. 

“I love you,” Crowley murmurs. “Aziraphale. My angel. I love you so much.” 

_My angel_. The possessive is not lost on Aziraphale, and it makes him shiver - makes him pull away, for a moment, on an instinct as old as time itself. 

Crowley stills. “What’s wrong?” 

_Yours_ , Aziraphale thinks, and the word feels enormous in his mind, feels like some gigantic beast that’s not ready to see the light of day. But oh, it roars. It _roars. Yours, yours, yours._

“What you said…” Aziraphale clutches Crowley’s hands. “I’ve only ever belonged to Heaven.” 

Crowley’s eyes are still visible in the dark. He regards Aziraphale with a certain carefulness, not wary but gentle, so indescribably gentle. “Do you, still?” 

Aziraphale looks down at himself. He thinks of Gabriel, of the angelic armies that were waiting for him when he was discorporated, of the flaming sword that Heaven used to define him for so long. He thinks of his ages-old fear as he ascended that escalator time and time again over centuries. Then he looks up at Crowley, and sees his eyes opened like bottomless pools to hide safe within.

He pulls Crowley close again and their lips collide. His hands push up and beneath Crowley’s shirt, caressing his skin, and Crowley shivers and melts into the touch, sighing into Aziraphale’s mouth as they kiss. Closer, closer, as though their souls are trying to merge into one. 

“No,” Aziraphale whispers. “No. I belong to you now.” 

When’s the last time he’s felt able to give himself so freely? And when’s the last time - never, surely, never ever before - that he’s received the answer Crowley murmurs in his ear as they move toward the bed? The answer so tenderly offered as Crowley’s mouth finds Aziraphale’s throat, laying loving kisses onto his soft skin - _I’m yours too, angel, yours forever._

It’s done in the dark. Aziraphale is swaddled by it, protected here in the home he’s built for himself, the home he’s invited Crowley to be a part of. He takes Crowley’s hands, slowly kissing each of his fingers, and then brings them up to the knot of his bowtie, encouraging Crowley to undo it. 

Crowley does. He opens the first two buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt as well, pressing his fingers tenderly to his chest. Aziraphale relishes the sensation as he holds Crowley close. Then he directs Crowley’s hands farther down, to unwrap him from his shirt and waistcoat, to unravel him to bare skin. It can be done now. Here in the dark Aziraphale can allow it. 

“Yours,” he says softly. “All this is yours.” 

Reverent fingers pull apart the final buttons and then Crowley’s arms are around him. Holding him, cherishing him, wanting him - _mine, my angel_ \- and yet without any urgency or need, no insistence. There is no test to be passed here. There is no worth to be proven. There is nothing but an enduring, patient comfort. 

Then Crowley brings Aziraphale’s hands down and curls them around the hem of his shirt, and Aziraphale pulls it up, over his head - Crowley’s arms are raised and his chest is exposed in a single movement, a gesture of trust, of surrender. A gesture of such easy and aching vulnerability. Aziraphale kisses the skin above Crowley’s beating heart. He feels Crowley’s breath, the simple humanity of the air rushing through his lungs, and wants to sing a hymn to it. How can it all be so beautiful? Everything he’s denied himself, all this time - how can it feel more heavenly now than all he’s felt before? 

Aziraphale moves Crowley’s hands to rest on his hips. He breathes deeply, reminding himself that he answers to no one now but who he chooses to. 

“Yours,” he murmurs. 

Their bodies fall onto the bed. Aziraphale finds himself on his back, the weight of Crowley’s body on top of him, and Crowley’s hands cradle his face as their lips lock together. Aziraphale shuts his eyes and loses himself in nothing but sensation; he and Crowley are the only two beings in the universe, the only things that matter. All outside is nothing but noise. Fear is a stranger left out with the light. 

They’re here with each other. Finally, _finally_ , they’re safe and they’re free. 

“Angel,” Crowley says hoarsely. “You’re incredible.”

Aziraphale’s hands tangle in Crowley’s hair as he pulls Crowley in for kiss after lingering kiss. “I’m so in love with you, dearest.” 

He doesn’t fear losing control in these arms, doesn’t dread failing. When Crowley’s hands move down once more, he welcomes it. He belongs to those hands, and those hands belong to him. A choice of belonging he’s never thought it’d be possible to make. 

Crowley’s mouth is by his ear again.

“Someday,” he whispers, “I want to see you.” 

Aziraphale moans and tilts his head back, letting Crowley trail kisses down his neck again. His eyes are still closed, but he knows they’re still in the dark. Yet Crowley’s words speak of another day, another time, in which this is done with no darkness at all. Not even the illusion of secrecy. He tries to imagine it. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Crowley says. “I want - someday I want to look at you. While we’re like this.” 

Silence, except for their breaths. 

“If it’s all right with you,” Crowley says. “Only if you want to.” 

He tries to imagine a world in which light is no longer associated, in his mind, with Heaven - in which he has spent so long in the sun that he forgets what it was like to stand under that harsh, exacting scrutiny. He tries to imagine a future where they’ve lived as long free as they did under watch. He thinks of eternity stretching out infinitely before them, and the million hours they can spend on this bed.

He thinks of seeing Crowley’s adoring gaze before him, free from all shadows.

“Someday,” he says. “Yes.” 

It’s done in the dark, this time. It will be done again in a thousand different ways. It’s slow, and it’s soft, and it’s gentle, and it’s endless - the giving and the taking, _my Crowley, my angel, my dearest, my own. Yours yours yours yours._ It’s all that could ever be asked of love, and many, many things Aziraphale has never thought to ask for. And it’s so small, and it’s so, so easy, and it’s right. 

Nothing has ever been like this before.

**Author's Note:**

> Like my content? Find me on tumblr @[whatawriterwields](https://whatawriterwields.tumblr.com)!


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